The Gloomy Place

Fran looked at the pitch-black cave entrance, thinking she had likely found the right place.

She had been following the river for a while when she discovered this dark spot along the bank, where nothing could be seen inside.

This must be the place, the dim region.

Even though there were glowing stones in the surrounding area, the light simply vanished as it neared this territory, which defied the principles of how light should propagate.

Fran stared into the pitch-black void, thinking she had to go in and see; perhaps there was something inside after all.

With that, she gripped the short sword she had just snatched in one hand and the tattered book in the other, then stepped inside.

Once inside, she discovered that her field of vision was limited to things within three meters; beyond that, everything was invisible.

And as she ventured more than three meters in, the light behind her was no longer visible.

Fran took a deep breath and continued inward. Fortunately, there were no obstacles on the path, allowing her to walk in a straight line. To be safe, she carved a few marks into the stone wall as she went.

After walking for a while, she realized her field of vision had shrunk even further, now extending just a little over two meters.

Yet she did not retreat, maintaining her forward pace.

"Hmm?"

At that moment, she glanced at the book in her hand and noticed it was emitting a faint glow. Fran opened it to take a look.

On the first page, the same text she had seen earlier reappeared, though she still could not understand it.

These characters seemed to possess a life of their own, manifesting on the page before flowing away and vanishing.

Then, a sentence suddenly appeared in her mind.

"My God shall illuminate His believers..."

Immediately following this, she felt as though she had mastered a skill called [Light Prayer].

Fran hurriedly checked her panel and saw [Light Prayer] listed under the skills section.

[Light Prayer (Mastered) (Proficiency: 76/1000): You can emit a light that illuminates the darkness.]

Fran's pupils constricted. Why did this skill start with a proficiency level of "Mastered"?!

She had never encountered such a thing before. She stopped in her tracks to ponder.

She had just heard that voice suddenly appear in her mind, and she had retrieved this book from a place resembling a church.

So, is this skill a gift from 'God'? A hypothesis formed in Fran's mind, and she felt it was highly probable.

"So, should I use it or not?"

Fran knew well enough that her field of vision would only grow narrower as she proceeded, and this book had suddenly provided a skill for illuminating the darkness.

It was clearly telling her that this skill was useful for the current situation, but she had no idea what the side effects might be if she used it.

After much deliberation, she decided to use it. She trusted what Ichi had told her: her connection to the Spirit Realm was currently too weak, so there was essentially nothing that could harm her.

"Light Prayer."

A ball of light appeared in her palm, brightening her field of vision significantly and making her feel as though she could finally see things clearly.

"Hmm, it seems I can throw it."

She tossed the ball of light in her hand forward. It rolled to a stone wall and came to a stop, illuminating the surrounding area.

"Not bad."

She felt as if she had no particular sensation; it seemed she could still throw hundreds more of these light orbs.

The Gloom Lizard is a common Spirit Realm creature found in dark zones.

They possess powerful dark vision, capable of seeing things ten meters away in these dark territories.

Part of the materials used to craft night-vision potions involves hunting these lizards in the Spirit Realm and then bringing their eyes into the Material Realm through special methods to be processed.

A Gloom Lizard was currently lying in wait in the dark region of the Jade Corridor, hoping for Spirit Realm Travelers who sought jade in the darkness to pass by so it could ambush and kill them.

Its method of crawling produced only the faintest sound; Spirit Realm Travelers often only realized a massive monster was nearby once it had already closed in on them.

As a creature of the Spirit Realm, it naturally did not need to forage for food or seek safe shelter like creatures of the Material Realm.

It was created by the Spirit Realm, and from birth, its entire existence served the functioning of the realm.

Deep within, it harbored a hunger that drove it to attack any Spirit Realm Traveler who intruded upon its territory.

It could sense that if it successfully hunted ten Spirit Realm Travelers, the Spirit Realm would bestow a reward, strengthening its body.

If it could hunt one hundred Spirit Realm Travelers, it would gain ownership of this dark region and become a Realm Lord.

Its life was born for this purpose, with no other driving force, unless it could ascend to become a Realm Lord, at which point it would be granted the intelligence to contemplate other things.

Its body lay pressed against the ground, focused on sensing sounds from afar.

The dark territory was so vast that even with its dark vision, it often failed to spot Spirit Realm Travelers who wandered in.

After accidentally hunting three Spirit Realm Travelers, it had somehow awakened the ability to hear sounds across this dark region, allowing it to detect targets from a great distance.

This target seemed different from the previous ones; the earlier targets always moved slowly, but this one was walking quite fast.

It would occasionally throw things against the walls to create noise.

It knew that this target might be somewhat different, but it had not abandoned the wisdom of targeting strange manifestations; as long as a target appeared, it would immediately pursue it.

When it tried to creep up beside the target to launch a sneak attack, it discovered that it seemed unable to catch up!

As everyone knew, being silent and moving quickly were generally mutually exclusive; at the Apprentice rank, such a combination was absolutely non-existent.

This was the first time its brain had encountered a situation where it could not catch the target, and it pondered for quite a while.

In the end, its desire for the target overcame everything else; it increased its speed, making quite a bit of noise in the process.

When it was still about 20 meters away from the target, it was discovered, leaving it no chance to slow down again after closing the distance.

It heard the target stop abruptly and remain in place.

In this situation, all it could rely on was the instinct of a creature of the Spirit Realm; it lunged forward immediately after being discovered, lacking the wisdom to temporarily retreat and delay its attack.

As it continued its charge toward the target, a spot directly in front of its field of vision suddenly became invisible; it did not know how to handle this, knowing only to continue forward.

And as it pressed onward, it felt a sharp pain in its eyes, losing its sight entirely, and its body seemed to collide with a spherical object.

At the same time, the stinging pain made it unable to focus on the target's sounds, and it felt itself losing its sense of direction.

Then, an attack tore its body apart, rendering it unable to move ever again; its corpse vanished after a minute, leaving behind a blue jade stone.